A bakery-style restaurant serving delicious scones and more

How to Cook Your Raw Scones at Home (Or the Cottage!)

Summertime in Ottawa means one thing—hordes of people going on vacation and escaping the city to nearby cottage country. For lots of us, that means doing some meal planning beforehand, so you know you have all kinds of delectable snacks for your time up at the lake.

Even if you’re not headed to a cottage, baking scones at home has all kinds of benefits. Still in your pyjamas on a Sunday morning, but craving scones? If you’ve got some in the freezer, you’ll be good to go in 20 minutes.

But scones can be finicky beings. When it comes to baking them, we’ve picked up some tips and tricks along the way. So, for your viewing (and eating) pleasure, we’re going to walk you through the steps to properly bake your SconeWitch goodies.

Step One: Freeze Those Babies.

A weird thing we discovered: scones cook really well from frozen. Really. They stand tall and proud, instead of slouching over or pooling out. This may shock scone purists (and, honestly, it shocked many of us at the SconeWitch when we discovered it), but scones actually cook best when they’re frozen.

When you buy your unbaked scones from our stores, they will likely not be frozen. So stick them in the freezer when you get home—you won’t regret it.

Step Two: Bake ‘Em.

This is honestly so easy.

(Protip: If you opted to be a rebel and not freeze your scones, follow the same instructions! We know, it makes no sense. It’s witchcraft.)

First, preheat your oven to 360°F.

While your oven is warming up, line a baking tray with parchment paper and space out the scones nice and even. That parchment paper part is important, because they can be rather sticky otherwise.

Now, this part is key: once the oven is preheated, drop the oven temperature down to 350°F. Put the scones in the oven immediately after doing this.

Bake for 23 minutes (we’re very precise).

Step Three: Test if They’re Ready.

Okay! This is the tricky part.

Your scones are ready when you squeeze the sides of them and no indent remains in the dough. It should poof back out again immediately.

You may find that 23 minutes is not long enough. Gas ovens, for example, are moister than electric ovens, so your scones will probably need more time.

Electric convection ovens are also different: with them, preheat to 350°F. After scones have been baking for 5 minutes, lower temperature to 325°F.

If you’re fancy and have an AGA Cooker, stick the tray of scones in the bottom-right oven and bake for 20 minutes. Then give them the squeeze test.

Once your scones are ready, let them sit for 5 or 10 minutes (we know, torturous). This will ensure the texture of them get perfect.